Opening the Emotional Bottle

I was lying in my daughter’s bed reading to her when I heard a scream. This was different than the crying we had been listening to for ten minutes. Down the hall, my son was crying himself to sleep because he had left his favorite stuffed animal, a armadillo named Ella, at school. My daughter, m, had closed her door to try to mute the sound while we read. But this scream was different. It was high pitched, and it was calling my name.

“That’s your mother,” I said to m and hurled myself out of bed. I took the stairs two at a time despite the slippery carpet, and ran into the bathroom where M was standing naked at the mirror. Tears filled her eyes, and her face was a mask of worry, fear, anger, and panic. She was holding her stomach.

“What happened?” I said.

“I was calling for you. But you didn’t come!”

“I’m sorry. The door was closed,” I said. “[j] was crying and I thought your cries were his cries. As soon as I realized different I ran down here. What happened?”

She had surgery the day before—a minor procedure to repair a scar she’s had since the last time she had surgery. Through tears she said she noticed some bleeding from the incision site. She was panicked, because eleven years ago this was the first sign of a wound infection that led to months on a wound vac and, eventually, the scar that she was trying to minimize.

I looked at the wound. The bleeding wasn’t bad, I told her. I helped her dress the wound with steri-strips and gauze, get her pajamas back on, and then get back into bed, all the while trying to soothe her. “I’m sure it’s nothing,” I said. “You’ve had a long day and need some sleep,” I told her. “Just lay down and see if you can sleep tonight. You’ll feel better in the morning,” I said.

She took her pills, including a pain med that would help her sleep. When she was settled in, I kissed her and said, “I love you. I’m sure this is nothing, but we’ll take another look at it tomorrow and see how it is. If we have to go back to the doctor, then we go back to the doctor.”

I went back upstairs to finish reading to m and found her sitting at her desk, not in her bed. She only glanced at me passingly while she swiveled in the desk chair. “I don’t need a story,” she murmured, and then turned away. She looked sullen and quiet, and the look on her face was not one of calm or serenity, or even sleepiness. She was worried.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said.

“Something’s wrong,” I said. “Talk to me about it. You’ll feel better if you get it off your chest.”

She plastered a fake smile on her mouth, teeth clenched. “Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s fine.”

“Why are you lying to me?” I asked.

She looked away.

“Whatever you are feeling, whatever is bothering you, you can tell me. If it’s Jun crying, or you hate school, or you’re worried about mommy, whatever it is, it’s okay. There’s nothing bad or wrong with you for feeling it. But talking about it can make it easier to deal with.”

“Nothing’s the matter,” she repeated.

After five minutes of this back and forth I was ready to give up. “Okay, time for bed then. You have school tomorrow.”

She got into bed, and I turned off all the lights in her room, something I never do. She sleeps with some light on in her room, and has since she was two. “You’re going to sleep without lights tonight,” I said, and walked out. I didn’t go far. I sat on the stair outside her bedroom. I figured she was worried about her mother. But I knew it would be better if she told me, rather than me telling her how she felt. But I also knew that turning off her lights was more of a punishment than anything. I was frustrated and felt powerless in easing the emotional pain of the two most important women in my life. But punishing my daughter for my frustrations was just wrong. I’d have to live with the fact that maybe she just didn’t want to talk to me about her feelings.

I went back into her room and turned on the light. She watched me with her eyes as I went to her and kissed her on the forehead. “Good night,” I said. “I love you.” Then I added, “No matter what.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll tell you,” she said. “I’m worried about mommy.” Then she started crying. Wailing, really, the emotional damn bursting open. “I just don’t like to talk about my emotions because talking about them makes me feel uncomfortable,” she balled.

I lay down next to her and held her while she cried. “Talking about our feelings and emotions isn’t easy,” I said. “It can seem easier to pretend everything is fine, that nothing is wrong. But all that does is bottle up the emotion, and then it comes out later and explodes. Whatever your feeling, you can always talk to me or mommy about it. Whatever it is, you won’t get in trouble, you won’t get yelled at, and you will still be loved and cherished. Because whatever you feel is okay, is fine.”

She nodded and wiped her tears. That was important, but more important was this.

“I’m bad at talking about my emotions, too,” I said. “I’m worried that people won’t like me if I acknowledge my own fears and worries and anxieties. I try hard to not bottle them up, but sometimes it happens. And you and I are not alone in that. It’s not a bad thing. It is something that is, and we only have to acknowledge it and try to not bottle things up.” I hugged her, and she hugged me back.

Then I told her about her mother. I told her about the surgery, and about her mother’s worries, and mine. As I spoke I realized that maybe we had never actually told her all this, that we’d assumed either she figured it out or that she somehow already knew. Maybe that was part of the problem here. That she really didn’t know what was going on, what had happened to her mother, why she was in pain, why she was screaming. The only other hospitalization m has known in the last year was when our neighbor had surgery in the spring to remove cancer from his abdomen. He was gone for nearly two months, and we didn’t know if he would come back.

After I explained it all, m seemed better. Still scared, sure. I told her mommy would show her the wound in the morning if she wanted, but she said she didn’t want to see it. At least she didn’t want to acknowledge that she wanted to see it. But that was okay. She knew now why mommy had screamed, and why there was so much worry about the surgery, and that in the end mommy would be okay.

When I was done I kissed her and said good night before I got out of bed. She said, “Daddy, I think I’m ready for a story now.”

So I picked up the book and started to read where I left off.